Santa Claus outraged by 'ho ho ho' ban

[Aptrgangr]

Santa Claus outraged by 'ho ho ho' ban


PC gone made ... Santas are rebelling against attempts to ban their traditional greeting of 'ho, ho, ho' in favour of 'ha, ha, ha' / File

By Janet Fyfe-Yeomans and Amanda Grant
November 15, 2007 07:00am

• "Ho ho ho" turned to "ha ha ha" for PC reasons
• Ho ho ho "could frighten kids, derogatory to women"
• Santas rebel

HE is an unlikely revolutionary but this Christmas, Santa is a rebel with a claus.
He is having the last laugh on political correctness - and it's a great big fat belly laugh.
Santas across Sydney are rebelling against attempts to ban their traditional greeting of "ho, ho, ho" in favour of "ha, ha, ha".
Recruitment firm Westaff - which supplies hundreds of Santas across the country - has told its trainees that the "ho ho ho" phrase could frighten children and could even be derogatory to women.
Two Santa hopefuls reportedly quit the course because of the hullabaloo of the ho, ho, ho.

One would-be Santa has told The Daily Telegraph he was taught not to use "ho, ho, ho" because it was too close to the American slang for prostitute. He also quit.
"Gimme a break," Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids, said.
"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they.

"Leave Santa alone."
Australian Childhood Foundation chief executive officer Dr Joe Tucci said it was the latest example of political correctness gone mad.
"There is no stronger tradition for children than Santa's ho, ho, ho," Dr Tucci said.
Yesterday department stores David Jones and Myers and the Westfield shopping centre chain moved to reassure children, and their parents, that Santa and his customary greeting was part of Christmas's present as well as Christmas's past.
A David Jones spokeswoman said they had discussed the situation with Westaff and their Santas would not besilenced.
"Senior management have assured us that Santas provided to David Jones have not been censored in any way," the spokeswoman said.
At Myer, where Westaff also train the fat men in red suit, Santa could not stop laughing about the suggestion.

"Myer has not directed our Santas to refrain from using 'ho, ho, ho' and believe the expression is an important Christmas tradition," a spokesman for Myer said.
Westfield's Santas are recruited and trained by RegProm Marketing and they will be "ho, ho, ho-ing" a Westfield spokeswoman said.
"Westfield Santas are known for their friendly and welcoming nature and know how to deliver a real festive 'ho, ho, ho'."
Sydney mother Maybel Lopez said she wanted her daughter Andria, 5, to grow up hearing Santa's "ho, ho, ho" just like she had and she did not realise it had other connotations.

"It's what Santa has been saying his whole life - my whole life. It is just a normal thing really for him to say 'ho, ho, ho'," Ms Lopez said.
Westaff's national Santa co-ordinator Sari Hegarty wrote to stores explaining the company's position.
"Westaff has been a provider of quality caring Santas for over 40 years," Ms Hegarty wrote in an email.
"Part of our advice to our Santas is that they should be mindful of children having their first Santa experience.
"We ask our Santas to try techniques such as lowering their tone of voice and using 'ha, ha, ha' to encourage the children to come forward and meet Santa. We wish you and your family a very merry Christmas."
Westaff national operations manager Greg Jansz said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of Santa himself.

Santa Claus outraged by \'ho ho ho\' ban | NEWS.com.au

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

How about abolishing this ugly creature, this creation of the mass consumer "culture", called Santa Claus, in general, instead of just changing "ho ho ho" to "ha ha ha"?

[Weltschmerz]

... and their Santas would not besilenced.

LOL. They tried their best to equal Tomten (Swedish for Santa Claus) with gangsters and prostitution.

@Plethon: Tomtar (plural) are a part of the folkish paganism in the Scandinavian world, where Tomten is often portrayed with a different and oftentimes green dress. A German would do better at explaining the origins of Claus, I guess. Santa Claus as he is portrayed in commercials is of course much of a fake, but it would be rather stupid to ignore the similarities between tomtar and Santa Claus, methinks.

[Kernunnos]

Mater stultorum .... ever pregnant

[Menydh]

Bah! I grew up without the fat guy of the coca-cola around in Christmas, and then we used to have a truest Christmas spirit.

I am for deporting all immigrants, including Santa Claus.

[Savorgnan]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Bah! I grew up without the fat guy of the coca-cola around in Christmas, and then we used to have a truest Christmas spirit.

How lucky you were! In Spain you have "los Reyes Magos" on January 6th. In Italy, on the same day my father, like every other Italian children, was used to have "la Beffana" ( a witch ). I think the tradition is still well alive in Spain ( I saw it on TVE a few years ago), but quickly fading in Italy. In Paris, as you can expect, I knew nothing else but the evil Santa Coca-Colaus... No Carnival either in Paris, how sad it is!

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Seekers

A German would do better at explaining the origins of Claus, I guess. Santa Claus as he is portrayed in commercials is of course much of a fake, but it would be rather stupid to ignore the similarities between tomtar and Santa Claus, methinks.

You mean Saint Nicholas? He was the III century Bishop of Myra (Anatolia, in modern Turkey), who among other things made a name for his generosity to people.

His story would later be merged with pagan tales, and produced Santa Claus in some countries.

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Savorgnan

How lucky you were! In Spain you have "los Reyes Magos" on January 6th.

Yes, the Magi or the Three Wise Men, on the night of the Epiphany.

It is still celebrated and it is the night to give presents. Though in the last decades, excess consumerism and no little commercial publicity have brought in the fat yankee boy of the coca-cola. So people make a little gift on that day, and then again the main gift is left for the night of the Epiphany. The problem is that it is children pushing for the fat yankee immigrant, since then they have more days to enjoy the presents, until the end of Christmas Holidays.

For us, it was a one day to enjoy the presents and then we would share them (well, show them off) with the friends at school.

On that evening, there are colourful parades running through the cities for the children.

The image of the Three Wise Men has traditionally been a little changed.. phenotype wise. One is represented by a man of white or even blonde beard (Melchor) with a crown, another by a man of dark or black beard (Gaspar) with a crown, and the third one (Baltasar) by a guy with the face painted in black and a turbant.

The classical (and old) joke is the question of why one of the Three Wise Men is a Black. To which the answer is that they needed one who would carry the presents.

[Carnyx]

I was trying to understand how it could be outageous...

I grew up with Saint Nicolas.

[Menydh]

[Aptrgangr]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

You mean Saint Nicholas? He was the III century Bishop of Myra (Anatolia, in modern Turkey), who among other things made a name for his generosity to people.

His story would later be merged with pagan tales, and produced Santa Claus in some countries.

http://www.stnicholascenter.org/

I grew up with exactly that Sankt Nikolaus, the tales of that Greek bishop were told, many Christians here still honour him very much (my 2nd name is even Nicolas). In the evening of dec 6th Usually someone dressed as St Nicholas and visits the family, after the children perform a small poem, and after St. Nicholas asked the parents the children were nice children an dthey confirm, he donates lebkuchen, chocolate, oranges and walnuts. Where I lived, in Black Forest, St. Nicolas often is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht, who looks scary and usually punishes nasty children, resp. threatens punishment if they do not behave better. Getting boots/shoes, that were put outside, filled with lebkuchen and a small gift is also a custom here.
All this has nothing to do with the "Weihnachtsmann", the "Christmasman" who is St.Claus in personal-union now and a foreign import and sadly more and more is common in this "disneylandized" society.

[Engelbrecht]

In earlier Swedish traditions a man dressed as the Christmas goat with some companions went around the villages and performed a little christmas play.

Later on this Christmas goat also handed out small gifts. This was eventually a role taken by Santa Claus.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

In some regions of northern Croatia there was also a custom of Saint Nicholas giving gifts to children on the 6th of December. And there was, beside Saint Nicholas, also the evil spirit called Krampus who used to punish children who misbehaved. There was also, parallelly, in some regions a custom of "little Jesus" giving gifts to children, on the Christmas Eve (Mali Jezuš, Isusek).

In southern regions the custom of giving gifts is connected with Saint Lucy (13th December).

There were all kinds of customs and songs associated with these occasions.

During Communism the fat and ugly Coca Cola man was imported from America and given local name (Djed Mraz, something like "Grandfather Frost", truely idiotic). It once more proves the truely brotherly spirit reigning between American Capitalists and "Eastern" Communists. The aim of this Djed Mraz was to combat all existing traditional customs of giving presents on the days of different saints or for Christmas.

In the 90ies, during the general national revival and after gaining the national independence, there was a (moderately succesful) attempt to give new life to those old customs. In fact, they were never totally abandoned, one part of the population (those not infected with Communism) still kept them.

Since 2000, however, since we are "blessed" with modern liberalism, the Coca Cola freak is back, just under slightly changed name.

[Weltschmerz]

I grew up with two kinds of tomtar/elves (I don't know if elf captures the meaning), but it was never pointed out that they are essentially different, that's why I say that there are connections.

One is quite similar to what Aptrgangr just described. He is a man who suddenly appears, asks the parents if you're been good and mysteriously knows your wishes.

The other is of an order of protective spirits. For example, there is a house-elf, a yard-elf and so on. They protect and look after their area. It is a custom on Christmas Eve (which still has the heathen name Julafton), and was probably a more regular custom earlier, to put a bowl of food with some butter or other garnish for the elf, which - I've heard many stories of this - is always gone, eaten up by the elf on the next morning when you awake. I suspect that the reason why this custom is waning is that many people don't have a cat or other domesticated animal to eat the food. (<---Heresy!)

These are the elves that you see everywhere around Jul, made of straw, porcelain or whatever, and there should be many of them, it's not one as it is with the Santa Claus.